For home minister Shinde, Hafiz Saeed is 'Mr' and 'Shri'

Home minister Sushilkumar Shinde used honorifics like 'Mr' and 'Shri' while referring to Pakistani terror mastermind and perpetrator of 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks Hafiz Saeed in Parliament.

NEW DELHI: Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed may be the key conspirator of the Mumbai terror attacks, but home minister Sushilkumar Shinde referred to him in Parliament using honorifics like 'Mr' and 'Shri' on Monday.

Shinde, during the course of a statement on the visit of Pakistan's interior minister Rehman Malik, addressed Saeed as 'Mr' and 'Shri' twice each.

"Mr Rehman Malik, interior minister of Pakistan has been telling us repeatedly that he had arrested Mr Hafiz Saeed thrice and that on each occasion, he was let off by the courts for lack of evidence," Shinde said in an identical statement in both Houses of Parliament.

"We had been given to understand by the interior minister of Pakistan that Mr Hafiz Saeed had been arrested on the charges of being a part of the conspiracy for the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks ... When we pursued this matter, they have given us papers pertaining to the detentions of Shri Hafiz Saeed in 2002 and 2009.

"From the papers given to us, it is clear that the detentions of Shri Hafiz Saeed in the aforesaid cases were for other reasons and not for his role as a conspirator in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. Therefore, I can only say that Mr Rehman Malik appears to have been misinformed in the matter," the minister said.